Antioch College Closing?

Trustees listen to college supporters—
Voices advocate for Antioch

By Diane Chiddister and Lauren Heaton

If Antioch College had ears, it would have felt very, very loved at last Saturday’s open forum segment of the special Antioch University Board of Trustees meeting held in Cincinnati. For two and a half hours, about 30 speakers, including alumni, faculty, staff, students and villagers, told the trustees and an audience of several hundred people in impassioned words of the value and uniqueness of the college.

The open forum was the first segment of the two-day special trustees meeting, which was held, according to Antioch University Board Chair Art Zucker, “to take the first step in the process of the plan for Antioch College.” About 18 trustees attended the session at which anyone could speak, listening at the front of the room and not responding. At a Saturday afternoon session, the trustees met with invited stakeholders to hear their visions as well.

All but one of the Saturday morning speakers opposed the trustees’ decision to suspend college operations next year, and urged the trustees to accept the alumni board’s plan to keep the college open.

“America needs Antioch,” said alumnus Larry Rubin of Tacoma Park, Md. “America needs a small, liberal arts college in which faculty and students together examine the curriculum as it interfaces with their work experience as it interfaces with the -community.”

Those who want the college to increase enrollment should not change the Antioch model, according to Rubin, but should simply better understand how Antioch works and communicate that understanding to young people.

The Antioch College experience is “an educational idea that moves and inspires me every day,” said Tom Haugsby, who heads the college’s co-op department. Because he plans to retire next year after 30 years, he spoke not to save his own job but to save the college’s unique learning environment, he said.

The entire meeting on Saturday and part of Sunday’s session can be obtained as a podcast at www.publicbroadcasting.net/wyso/news.newsmain.

Support for faculty
The trustees need to understand the high quality of the college’s current faculty and the value of tenure, according to Professor Pat Mische, the Lloyd professor of peace and global studies. Having worked in institutions considered more prestigious, she has found that “the faculty I have met here are extraordinary. They meet and exceed” the standards of faculty found at more prestigious schools.

When the announcement was made that the college would close in a year, she received e-mails from concerned colleagues around the world, Mische said, because “Antioch has become all over the world a bearer of light and possibility.”

But the college has suffered from a faulty governance system in which its interests have become lost amidst the interests of the other five Antioch University centers, several speakers said, urging the trustees to accept the proposal presented by the Antioch College alumni board to make the college independent and self-governing.

The harm to the college from the current governance system has left several Mann family members, descendents of the college’s first president Horace Mann, feeling “bitterly disappointed and betrayed,” according to a letter from the Mann family read by alumna Karen Mulhauser. The family, once substantial donors, has stopped donating to the college but would begin again if the college became independent, the letter said.

Seize the moment
Many speakers urged the trustees to see the opportunity provided by the great outpouring of support for the college in the past two months, as evidenced by the $8 million raised by the alumni board.

“Your decision has awakened a sleeping giant of care and concern among alums, among those in the world of higher education and many others,” said Catherine Jordan of the alumni board, saying that the alums are “ready and willing to do the heavy lifting to sustain Antioch College.”

The opportunity to take advantage of so much support won’t last long, according to many.

“The stars are aligned, the time is right” for the college’s revival, according to Tony Dallas, who said that “the visionaries of Antioch College’s future are here, waiting to be engaged.”

While the board of trustees may have made the decision that seemed right to them in June, the situation has changed considerably since then, according to Eric Miller, an alum who is associate professor in the co-op department.

“The board decision at the time may have been the only one seen as viable, but 74 days later if you can’t see other options, you’re not looking,” he said.

Town and gown
Several villagers spoke of the town’s interdependent relationship with the college, and how Yellow Springs would be harmed by even a temporary college closing. In a letter signed by many local business and civic persons, Samantha Eckenrode, an Antioch alum and business owner, asked the trustees to understand that in closing the college “you put our business and civic community at risk, as well as your own.”

The letter urged the trustees to “take this highly time-sensitive opportunity to send out a strong, positive message to the world that there is a clear and viable plan that does include the college and its important, 150-year plus legacy in Yellow Springs.”

The trustees do not always hear accurate information about the wishes of Yellow Springers, according to Dimi Reber, Antioch professor emerita. While the trustees were led to believe that the whole village supported the construction of a new Antioch University McGregor building on the edge of town, that building does not reflect the local values of sustainability, walkability and smart growth, according to Reber, who said the plan to suspend the college operations “seems again like economy without ecology.”

The alumni plan for an independent, continually-operating college has strong support among Yellow Springers, said Judith Hempfling.

“What’s possible for Antioch College can be small or it can be large and open,” she said. “Be open to the huge amount of energy that’s available.”

Several who spoke asked the trustees to consider if they had enough time, in June, to thoroughly consider the momentous decision they made to close the college.

“Did you receive all the information needed to make this decision? Did you weigh multiple options? Did you have all the time you needed?” asked Antioch College Associate Professor Chris Hill.

Speakers urged the trustees to understand and honor the unique young people who become Antioch students. While much has been made of students’ need for better facilities, “our students don’t come because of the facilities. I don’t know where you got that idea,” said Amy Alexander Peterson, a 19-year veteran of the college’s housekeeping staff. “They come because we don’t have the facilities. They come because they want a challenge.”

Several new freshmen, only on campus a few days, spoke of their attachment to the college after only a short time.

“If you keep the college going, we’ll do some cool things,” said Jay Casale.

According to Mische, the college has received about 11,000 inquiries from prospective students for next fall, information which received a standing ovation.

Alumni present their plan
In their proposal to the board of trustees on Saturday afternoon, Antioch College Alumni Association representatives Rick Daily and Catherine Jordan made a persuasive argument about why the university should join forces with the alumni board to keep the college open under the leadership of a new Antioch College Board of Trustees.

“The college does not want to be the weak sister anymore; we want to be a self-governing and self-sustaining institution,” Daily told the trustees. “If the college doesn’t make it, it will be because of its own failure. The college must stand or fall on its own merits.”

The afternoon session, while originally a closed meeting between the trustees, university officials and invited stakeholders, was at the last minute opened to the press after a plea made earlier that morning by Megan Rosenfeld, a college alumna and former journalist for the Washington Post.

The alumni proposal begins with the alumni and university working together to establish no later than February 2008 a new college board of trustees with the authority to select the college president and have control of the college endowment, physical plant and real estate, budgeting and fundraising, staff and faculty contracts and the college curriculum. According to Jordan, this new board would work with the university to define its relationship to the university as well as its relation to McGregor and to Glen Helen, WYSO, the Coretta Scott King Center, Antioch Education Abroad and the Antioch Review.

The proposal made clear that the university would be insulated from the financial liability the college poses as soon as possible. But Jordan also articulated that in order for the transition to occur no later than graduation 2008, the university would need to comply with a due diligence request to provide full access to financial information as well as institutional expertise the college has in its software and accounting, development and admissions staff.

The alumni board is currently working on a business plan for a successful transfer, which cannot be completed without full disclosure of the college’s financial records, Daily said.

Daily reminded the board that in just two months Antioch College has received unparalleled support to the tune of $8 million from 32 alumni association chapters without the promise of anything but faith in a renewed college. If the transfer is successful, he said, fund raisers have evidence that there is an additional $100 million in donations waiting to be invested in a self-sufficient Antioch College.

“Is this enough to run a college? Hell no!” Daily said. “Is it a good start? Hell yes.”

Several university board members had concerns about the university’s ability to cede control of the college and get completely clear of its financial liability. But according to Daily, the college would indemnify the university and assume independent responsibility for the college’s current and future debt.

“Your nightmare is that we try to create this college and we still fail and leave you with a burden that could take the whole university down,” Daily said. “We will take all the liabilities off your hands.”

Stakeholders speak
Many of the stakeholders at the afternoon meeting spoke in support of the alumni proposal. Mische said the faculty fully supports the plan, which coupled with a strong vision, tenured faculty and the current publicity surrounding Antioch, has the opportunity for successful fundraising efforts.

“We get money not by asking for support for a sinking ship, but for a program with a vision,” she said.

Yellow Springs Arts Center Committee member Jane Baker said the college plays a vital role in nurturing the arts in Yellow Springs. “Yellow Springs without Antioch College is hard to imagine, and we want to help you keep it alive.”

College Associate Professor Beverly Rodgers made a plea that the board consult with their “able partners in the faculty when considering a business plan” for the college.

Village Manager Eric Swansen and Village Council Acting President Karen Wintrow took no stance, but requested that college leaders remember the “village needs a successful college.”

Yellow Springs stakeholder Dan Young, owner of Young’s Jersey Dairy and president of Community Resources, had trouble seeing how the alumni proposal would really change the college’s situation and bring enrollment up from 300 students.

“The plan sounds good, but what will Antioch College look like in 2010?...What do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked. “I want a sustainable institution; I’d love to have 2,000 students because students buy ice cream.”

And Fred Bartenstein, a member of McGregor’s board of visitors, stated his hope that McGregor’s learners and donors would not be adversely affected by the college’s deliberations. The relationship between the two campuses is “not job one for a revitalized college,” he said.

Contacts: dchiddister@ysnews.com, lheaton@ysnews.com